I have an assortment of hot peppers from my CSA and looking to try for some simple fermented sauce. Peppers and salt. Not sure how much salt and whether I need a brine and submerge the pepper puree like kraut or just mix salt and pepper and let it sit. Only fermented chile sauce recipe I've seen is here (and she doesn't talk about added liquid): http://nourishedkitchen.com/fermented-h ... ce-recipe/ Don't want to bother with whey or culture. The quantity of salt in this recipe seems low in relation to pickle ferments I'm familiar with... thoughts? suggestions? Can I go wrong? Starting with 1.5lb peppers. Might try a sort of bok choy kimchi next.

hey erik, been wanting to do the same thing for some time myself, but haven't gotten around to it yet. the recipe i'm going to use calls for some vinegar to be added to the mix prior to fermentation. the sauce might not be as simple as what you're looking for, but i hope this link helps: http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/2011/05/reci ... -free-too/

Appreciate the thoughts, thanks. I think I see why you suggest not pureeing them first, Tim. I was confused by the instructions I was looking at which didn't call for pressing them like kraut. I spoke to someone doing the same thing right now and she had the same idea (to try next time). I think I found a work around. I have a french press coffee maker that is not in use... it fits the peppers and presses them down beautifully. I just transferred to that vessel last night, a few days into it. I ended up using something like 3-5 tspns of canning salt and maybe 1/3-1/2 cup water to 1.3lb peppers. I was a bit of a spaz, not sure I have the salt level right and not sure if the few days of floating pepper puree will do me harm... i guess we'll see what happens. One thing of note... I used about every color pepper under the sun. red chiles, yellow carrot, orange habenaro, green jalpeno and pablano, Czech black, etc etc... it sounded fun going into it. But as someone who has used more than a bit of paint in his day, I should've known what color I'd get when I mixed every color in the rainbow together! More or less shit-brown. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be interesting regardless. Thanks again.

Awesome post, Erik. Not often I get to read some humor about fermenting...no offense, but I got some good laughs outa that.

Don't sweat the floating peppers. People really do make too big a deal about fermenting boogey-men. If there's something truly wrong with your ferment, you'll have some obvious indicators - like if it starts to grow a beard, or smells like a dumpster. The latter, by the way, is highly unlikely to happen.

i just finished eating about 3 quarts of delicious fermented roasted peppers. here is my recipe:

1) roast the peppers and don't bother trying to scrape off all the charred skin. once the peppers are roasted, you ought to be able to just pull the stem and seeds out in one fell swoop.2) chunk up the peppers to your preferred size. i cut them to about half-inch square pieces.3) mix the pepper chunks with garlic, salt, onion, or any other herbs/seasonings you prefer in a big bowl.4) pack them into crocks, but don't worry about a firm pack like with kraut. I added water instead of waiting for the salt to make juice come out of the peppers.5) i fermented half of it for 3 weeks and let the other half go for about another 10 days. frankly, i enjoyed them both, though the younger batch had a more immediate heat flavor while the longer fermented batch had a more subdued heat.

i suppose you could blend it for a sauce, but i really enjoyed adding the pepper chunks to tacos, eggs, and pretty much every other thing i've been eating for the last month.

I am attempting to make salt fermented hot sauce using a recipe I found in a recent Mother Earth News. I made one batch with green jalenpenos, and one with ripe red ones. Both were a little on the dry side even after sitting a few hours, so I added brine to both. I mixed the extra brine into the green, but gently poured it on top of the red. There was no mention of weighing the mash down under the brine, so I didn't do that.

The salt/mash (peppers chopped in a food processor) ratio was 1.5 teaspoons salt to each cup of mash -- the green was 3 cups mash, the red was 5 cups. The extra brine added was 1.5 teaspoons salt dissolved in one cup water. I added one cup brine to each batch.

Here's my question: I made the batches Saturday, and as of the following Wednesday (yesterday) the red had risen through the brine to the surface, and has a thin layer of mold mold on it. Should I try to remove the moldy mash, add more brine and then weigh the mash down? Or should I toss it?

The green is not under a layer of brine, but there is no mold. It does have a higher salt to mash ratio, though.